


The Way Back Home

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Series: Raven Cycle Writing Fills [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 100 ways to say i love you, Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, Declan had emotions, F/M, and then characters had emotions, and today on 'I meant for this to be light-hearted'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22601041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: Declan had agreed to the Barns, but wondered if it had been a mistake. If showing Jordan his attic collection had compromised a bit of his safety, his family home in Singer’s Falls compromised a lot of it. In DC, he was hidden away. Here, everything that shaped him was all out there if you knew where to look.
Relationships: Jordan/Declan Lynch
Series: Raven Cycle Writing Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1399438
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	The Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my 100 follower celebration, using the prompt list '100 Ways to Say I Love You'. This request was for Jordan and Declan to "Here, drink this. You'll feel better." I was super excited to write this because I adore Declan Lynch so much. Hope you enjoy!

Declan agreed to the Barns because he’d known it to be the safest option. Ronan coveted the property like a second religion, and as such, protected it in the ways he knew best. With all due respect to his clever and disastrous little brother, he could have totally done without being suddenly aware of every viciously exposed and raw part of himself that the ‘security system’ had invoked, thank you very much. Declan adjusted to tired being a part of his daily vocabulary, but by the time he stepped over the threshold, tired morphed into exhaustion. He fretted over Matthew, who took his new pets in a water bottle and went out to see the cows. He told Jordan to make herself at home in the kitchen while he went upstairs to see if Ronan kept the guest room habitable. He doubted very much that Parrish used it when he visited.

Declan had agreed to the Barns, but wondered if it had been a mistake. If showing Jordan his attic collection had compromised a bit of his safety, his family home in Singer’s Falls compromised a lot of it. In DC, he was hidden away. Here, everything that shaped him was all out there if you knew where to look. Like not having enough time to clean before company arrived. His father’s dreams, Ronan’s dreams, Aurora’s favorite China, Matthew’s old video games, the sitting room, the kitchen, the upstairs rooms, everything. His palms were sweaty as he pushed open the door to his childhood bedroom. He snorted as he slipped in, thinking that ‘childhood’ was technically all but 4 years ago, before Aglionby, when he still lived here, when his family was as whole as he ever thought it would be. Even when he lived here, he hadn’t been a child for long. Declan could not put the bitter parts of himself back into their neatly repressed mental cupboards. 

Prints from Renaissance and impressionist masters still lined his walls, the knitted quilt in his favorite blues and greens draped over his bed. Inside his closet hung jeans and shirts, garb of a boy who existed before grey suits and raven-breasted sweaters. Everything looked the same as he’d left it, and it struck him that even after he and his brothers could legally come and go here, he’d never stayed over. God forbid he fall asleep in this place where time was liquid and magic was real; he might wake up and come to breakfast human, the real Declan Lynch. The Barns probably knew who he was better than he did.

That thought terrified him.

He cursed Niall because he could. He swore at the security system and Ronan. He clenched his fists so hard his nails left marks in his palm, wanting to box until his knuckles bled. He swallowed the anger like bitter medicine, sternly reminding himself what he had to lose, all while wishing he could tuck himself into his bed, see if his pillowcases still smelled like they did coming in off the clothesline, if the quilt was warm and heavy enough to make a cave. He can’t. He can’t he can’t he c—

Declan jerked as the shrill whistle of the kettle downstairs cut into his tender thoughts. _Thank God._ He turned his back on the smaller, more vulnerable him that had taken refuge in his room and closed him safely inside. 

Jordan’s brow went into her hairline as soon as he came back to the kitchen. ‘You look a bit wrecked, mate.”

He felt it. “Long day at the office.”

She laughed and pressed a mug into his hands. Black with a chip in the rim. He remembered it, second shelf, first cabinet to the left of the sink. 

“Here drink this,” Jordan said quietly, reaching up to run her fingertips along his jaw. He felt unraveled, a loose thread in a sweater she couldn’t help pulling on. Her warm eyes weren’t without sympathy for this mess they were in, too full of unfinished business that had started with her hands on his skin in his very own kitchen. She was doing it again. She added, “You’ll feel better.”

“Will I?” Declan was certain the tea wasn’t what would soothe the monster in him.

“I hope so, it was the first tea I could find. Cute little jar too, with the pink flowers on it ‘n all. Charming.” 

He held the mug, and the surface of the tea rippled within because he couldn’t keep still. He looked at Jordan, and saw in her all the things he hadn’t been prepared for. To shake loose of his father’s hold, to step out of his own web of lies, to adore those who could get close to him without being afraid. To embrace what he’d known all along; that he could only draw the line between dreams and reality for so long before he had to accept they were one and the same in his world. To admit whole-heartedly he could love them both. And most of all that he had no grasp on the future now, nothing that he could read or research that would make him ready for it. He had to go in blind and actually decide if he had enough faith for the path ahead. He didn’t want to lose this, lose her, lose them.

Declan Lynch was frightened.

So when he kissed Jordan, it was the only way he could say any of it. _Please, thank you, I’m sorry, I’m scared._

She kissed him back like she understood.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me about CDTH and TRC at [my blog](http://oldkingyounggod.tumblr.com)!


End file.
